Quote from: VeggieNeil on May 09, 2007, 06:57 PM
I have just made a tikka marinade using raw onions and when cooked all I seemed to taste was an overwhelming bitter taste. Could this be from not blanching the onions prior to whizzing the marinade in a food processor?
VN

I might be able to help a bit here due to bitter experience (no pun intended  ;D )
I tend to make authentic curries rather that BIR style and in my early days used to try and find shortcuts to reduce prep time.
One of those was to liquidise onions in a food processor..bad move..bitter taste, not unrecoverable I found out, just takes a bit more gentle cooking.
I have come to a conclusion, if doing authentic curries when the recipe says finely choped, do just that, use a good knife or be very delicate with a food processor using the pulse function.
If you are doing BIR style it involves making a base gravy which is a pre-cooked combination of onions, garlic, ginger etc. which is then liquidised after cooking..result no bitter taste.
So yes, pre-cooking is the secret if doing BIR stuff, or chop it if doing traditional stuff.
Just my observations 

Jethro

Welcome matey

Hello and welcome 

Interesting!!, but I think thier food techies would be better employed trying to make a supermarket curry that actually tastes like a curry (authentic or BIR).
Why they think that growing stuff in Lancashire and Lincolnshire in flippin' great hydroponic fed green houses will replicate anything grown somewhere with twice as much heat with a totally different geology is beyond me.

Ahh sorry I get it!!

Chris Wibberley, Asda's fresh produce technologist, says: "Developing home grown ingredients makes perfect economic sense."

Ahh thats all right then.... they make more profit..bugger what it tastes like!!

A synical Jethro 

Quote from: Admin on April 17, 2007, 09:15 AM

As soon as the sun pops out, no one plays curry chef anymore 

As soon as the sun pops out a bit more permenantly I'm going to persuade the wife we need a Tandoor 

Welcome to the forum 

Thanks for kind comments

Stew,
You could put the ground spices into the oil at the start, but there is no need, there is enough oil/water in the base gravy to extract the flavour and a lot safer than risking them getting burned.
Being in powder form exposes each tiny grain of spice to whatever medium you are using to extract the flavour therefore it don't take long as opposed to whole spices.

cK,
When you look at the overall weight involved, 1 level tablespoon (approx. 15 gms) compared to the base plus other ingredients and meat (at a guess about 2Lb) it's not that much.
Also I find that anything with coconut cream/milk in it tends to get the spice mix  masked a bit.

Rai,
Sorry I didn't make that look very clear, I have amended it.
Garam massala is only a mix of spices like any other, it can go in near the end if you want  a raw spicy flavour (some recipes call for this) or, in the context I am using it, as a general spice boost which needs to be melded into the dish.
I could have put small amounts of all the ingredients in the garam masala into the dish at that point and you would not have asked the question . Just because its "garam masala" does not mean it cannot be used for purposes other than the most excepted ones.
Hope this explains it 

Here we go, my first attempt at BIR style curry (as experimented by myself) as opposed to authentic  traditional recipes which I usually do.

My choice was Chicken Ceylon as I have not seen it done here and it's one of my favourites.

This will serve two hungry people quite easily.

Ingredients:
1 bag (about a pint, or 1/2 a litre) of Darth's base sauce, you can use any of your choice, it's just that I have quite a bit left from my last experiment 
5 green cardomom pods just cracked open
5 bits of cassia bark
5 cloves
About a dozen whole black peppercorns.
2 Teaspoons of hot chilli powder (or even more if you want it hotter)
1 Tablespoon of Garam masala (if you want to be more authentic it should be a Ceylon masala but 99.9% of BIR's will just use the normal stuff, so I have)
1 bruised stem of fresh lemongrass
A splodge of oil..(technical term)
100 grms of Creamed coconut
1 Tablespoon of curry leaves.
1 Teaspoon of salt.
4 chicken breasts chopped into bite sized pieces.

Method:
Put the chopped chicken in a pan just cover with water and boil for about 5 mins or until just cooked though. Using a slotted spoon remove the chicken into a bowl and reserve the water.
In your main cooking vessel put the splodge of oil (ok about a tablespoonfull for you pedants) and gently fry the whole spices, cassia, cardomom, cloves and black pepper (not the curry leaves or lemongrass) for 2 minutes stirring all the time to avoid burning.
Add the base gravy and heat untill boiling, you should have a nice wet mix, time to add the bits that need more delicate treatment.
Add the chilli powder, salt, and curry leaves, lemongrass and garam masala, cook for as long as you think is right (taste it you will know when it's right)
Add the coconut cream and melt it into the mix.
At this point it will start to thicken quite fast, keep the heat down and add some reserved chicken stock as required to achieve your required consistency.
Cook for a couple of minutes untill coconut is well distributed in the sauce.
Add the pre-cooked chicken and heat through untill you are sure that everything is cooked through and melded together.
You have the choice now of leaving the whole spices in or picking them out, I like to leave them in myself, its shows a bit of individuallity to the dish and you just can't beat that explosion of flavour when you bite into a whole cardamom pod!.
Serve with a rice of your choice (coconut rice is traditional, and I will post a recipe for this separately) and/or naan and some fresh coriander for garnish.
Half a hardboiled egg can be added to each portion if wanted, Some restaurants do, some don't, or chopped hardboiled egg sprinkled over the top looks nice..entirely up to you



Enjoy!!

Jethro

Welcome to the forum! 

Welcome to the forum!!  ;D